iPad DJ Rana Sobhany Gets in Touch With Music’s Future

Instead of two turntables and a microphone, DJ Rana Sobhany makes music with two iPads and a handful of apps.

Sobhany’s inspiration for her unorthodox DJ rig came as she waited in line outside an Apple Store in New York City on the day the iPad was released.

“I just started playing with some of the music apps that were available for the iPhone, specifically the IK Multimedia GrooveMaker apps,” she told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. “I got really inspired by the basic functionality of these apps and I started thinking about ways to incorporate iPad into a live performance. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was entirely possible to build a set around solely iPad music software and applications.”

Within five days, Sobhany had cooked up her iPad DJ setup. She was interviewed by tech blogger Robert Scoble, who filmed a 17-minute video in which she demonstrated her process for using the iPads to DJ. The video blew up online, and Sobhany quickly became known as the first iPad DJ.

Now Sobhany (@ranajune), an application brand marketer and author of Mobilize! Selling Mobile Content in an iPhone and iPad Era, has released Destroy the Silence: Volume One, a 13-minute set of music made using iPad apps.

Just as GarageBand recording software, which comes preinstalled on Apple computers, spurred many Mac owners into dabbling in music for the first time, the iPad’s unique characteristics make it the perfect piece of hardware to spark a new creative era, according to Sobhany.

“Lots of great bands and artists have come from the ‘GarageBand generation’ of production, as I like to call it,” she said. “With iPad, I think that a lot of people will start downloading music apps and learning to play instruments from them.”

The music on Destroy the Silence is on par with much of the electronica made using more conventional methods. That’s saying a lot considering the lack of refined post-production work on the record, and the fact that Sobhany is not spinning any actual records.

And this first effort just scratches the surface of what the powerful OS that runs iPads and iPhones is capable of, according to Sobhany.

“The iPad will quickly evolve into the ideal device for music creation and DJing,” she said. “Loop libraries will get better. Hardware will get better. More hardware and software companies will build mobile apps and the users will become more savvy about what they want from the iPad. There will be peripherals that support inputs like USB and FireWire. Video remixing will be possible.”

Sobhany’s personal progression from concept to actual iPad DJ was quick and fairly painless. She plugged her dual iPads into a Numark M3 DJ mixer and a sound system. No additional instruments or computers were needed to create the music (although a computer was used to record Destroy the Silence).

In comparison to traditional DJ setups, Sobhany’s is much cheaper and more efficient. However, the lack of multitasking on the iPad made it somewhat difficult to create coherent, slick mixes.

“It’s hard enough to mix beats together when dealing with laptops,” she said. “Now imagine that with two independent computing platforms with no ability to sync. The lack of multitasking in the OS makes it really hard to transition quickly between apps. There really is no room for error. There are so many things happening at once that it can be dizzying.”

Still, the iPad does much of the grunt work when it comes to aligning rhythms and matching tempos, she said.

“Having the ability to monitor sounds through the mixer I’m using also makes it easy to experiment with sonic ideas on the fly and iterate as needed,” she said. “I haven’t stopped playing music on the iPad since I got it, so I think that’s a testament to the fun factor of it.”

Citing what she called a “perfect storm in terms of touch interfaces,” whipped up by the sci-fi gadgetry seen in Minority Report and the real-world functionality of the iPhone and iPad, Sobhany predicted the humble computer mouse will soon become obsolete.

“There will be some huge strides made with regard to haptic feedback on these multitouch surfaces,” she said. “Even now, when I use some of the drum machine apps, you can actually feel the bass when you touch the pad on-screen, and I would love to see this extend to feedback from touching keys on a keyboard and the feeling of changing a setting on a knob.”

While the iPad will never replace pro studios’ powerful recording software, mixing boards and musical gear, Apple’s tablet will certainly open the door for budding musicians and application developers.

“I am really trying to set the precedent that these devices are powerful and capable even right out of the box and that compelling music can be made using only tablet computers,” Sobhany said. “If I can play some good music for an hour using only ‘stock’ applications, then imagine what will happen when I can load in my own sound libraries and loop them on the fly. Or when I can download applications right from the gig I’m playing on my 3G iPad and play from it seamlessly. This is a really exciting time to be making music.”